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Propelling the Arts: Get inspired by four locals whose passions for all things creative help foster artistic expression and community in the Holy City

Propelling the Arts: Get inspired by four locals whose passions for all things creative help foster artistic expression and community in the Holy City
May 2023

Discover emerging talents across a variety of stages, then learn more about the institutions that support them



(Clockwise from top left) Tim McManus, Zandrina Dunning, Terry Fox, and Kate Ledbetter.

Tim McManus

Hed Hi Studio
Curating colorful works on Upper King Street

Tim McManus had just moved his video production company, Hed Hi Media, into a studio on Upper King when buyer’s remorse set in. It was 2014, and he had already started to renovate the space formerly occupied by the Center for Photography. Pulling out of the deal would be complicated. “I thought I had made a mistake.” >>READ MORE HERE

Zandrina Dunning

The ZD Experience
Producing musical extravaganzas and uplifting lives

Turn the radio up. I can’t get enough…. Wanna give it to the world. Can’t keep it all to myself….” On the TedxCharleston stage last spring, vocalist Zandrina Dunning sang of love and good vibes, drawing the audience into a rhythmic groove. The song, “Cascades,” which she cowrote with Stephen Washington, embodies her belief in the power of music to revive and connect. “In a world full of chaos and turmoil, it’s important to get back to love, and a tool that we use is music,” she explained into the mic. >>READ MORE HERE

Kate Ledbetter

Redux Contemporary Art Center
Ensuring space and support for emerging talents

Kate Ledbetter had only been on the job as executive director of Redux Contemporary Art Center for a month when the first shows under her leadership opened on the same night in September 2022. “We don’t ever know exactly what the artists are going to show up with,” she says. And the three exhibitions debuting that evening could not have been more disparate: In the main gallery, seasoned textile artists Mikki Blackman and Deborah Donovan Rice collaborated on an installation and brought in an improv jazz group for ambience. Nick Kawczynski and Jillian Thorvaldson, a couple of young emerging artists fresh from Redux’s Lightning Residency program, were pouring margaritas in the back gallery to complement a series of ink drawings of tequila bottles. And Daisy McClellan showed a collection of her textile work in the middle space entitled “Art Before Dishes” (a mantra that particularly resonates with Ledbetter, a mother of two young boys). >>READ MORE HERE

Terry Fox

Charleston Arts Festival
Amplifying an array of creative locals on multiple stages

With a playful grin perched beneath his signature dark-rimmed spectacles, Terry Fox gives the impression of a boy who’s up to a little mischief. As the cofounder and associate director of Charleston Arts Festival (CAF), he helps push the boundaries of what some consider worthy art, focusing on the quirky, peculiar, and otherwise unseen sides of the Lowcountry’s imagination. “When Charleston Arts Festival started, we sort of saw ourselves as the non-Spoleto, wanting to appeal to a younger, less-moneyed demographic,” he explains of the series that launched in 2016 as a “reimagining” of cofounder Andrew Walker’s former “Jail Break” events. >>READ MORE HERE